National signing day is a big deal. The day high school football players make binding commitments to colleges has long been a big deal. But these days it has become a spectacle — just one not befitting the months of daily, sometimes hourly, updates.

I mean, how riveting is it to see a 17-year-old don the hat of Football U? This is not the NFL draft, in which there is always some suspense, as in, “The Cowboys picked WHO?”

More and more recruits are waiting until the first Wednesday in February to make it official, tantalizing fans until the final minute they sign. We just went through that, and there were more players deciding (or announcing) later than ever.

Interesting, but hardly show-stopping material. Unless your favorite school desperately needs that big lineman and he’s still playing hard to get.

Before the NCAA limited contact between schools and recruits, there wasn’t as much spectacle, but it was still pretty interesting.

Back in the day, Alabama’s Bear Bryant jetted into Savannah to pick up the signature of Benedictine’s Bill Searcey.

After Searcey signed, Bear deigned to come forth and comment. Since his comment was mostly mumble, one of his entourage translated.

OK, it was no threat to rival “The Walking Dead” for suspense, but for a town the size of Savannah to get a visit from a coaching legend was a big deal. Mumbling or not, this was Bear Bryant in a town more used to Yogi Bear.

Not that much later, Georgia Tech’s Pepper Rodgers jetted in to sign Beach’s big lineman Roy Simmons. Now that was a spectacle to rival the Oscars.

I would like to write how it is unfitting for a 17-year-old who has never played a down of college football to have coaches and fans waiting breathlessly until early February to pick up a hat or college mascot. Isaiah Crowell, for example, indicated his choice of colleges by picking up a bulldog. Good thing he wasn’t going to Florida.

I would like to write that it can’t be good for anyone that young, maybe anyone at all, to be that self-important and self-absorbed. That going on one of the multiplicity of cable channels to announce their decision in a not-quite-prime time contrived event is bogus for the athlete, TV show, fans and coaches.

I would like to write that the egos of today’s athletes have grown faster their muscles.

And there might be some truth in it. But ... the real question is: Who’s at fault in all of this?

There is more than enough blame to go around.

TV is, as usual, right in the thick of it, showcasing athletes making their big decisions to the public as if they need an audience to help in the thought process, and this could possibly be entertaining for, oh, 10 seconds.

Ditto for the other media.

Newspapers follow every pronouncement as if it were etched in stone, and chronicling some decisions that change more often that a red light. I mean, remember Reuben Foster, the pride of Alabama? He heads to Tuscaloosa with an Auburn tattoo the size of Texas.

The recruitniks

On the Internet, there are websites devoted strictly to recruiting — judging, rating, weighing and chasing high school players. Sure, there are worse ways to make a living — it’s called working.

Coaches share the blame, with calls, tweets, visits, promises and pressure that a 17-year-old kid probably does not need.

So, at the end of the day, what does it all mean? Not much.

Recruiting gives us something to fill the time between the end of football season and the start of spring football.

It keeps interest alive, and if a kid wants to play coy and have some fun at the expense of, well, all of us, more power to him.

It we want to live and breathe recruiting the weeks leading up to signing day, more power to us.

The real context

But there are two things to remember:

One, it’s no game to the coaches. Their jobs depend on the decisions of 17-year-olds. It’s not life or death, but it’s livelihood or unemployment.

Two, ratings of prospects mean as much as early commitments — nothing. Too many can’t-miss prospects can’t play.